Toyota On The Hot Seat Because Their Trucks Are Good

Counter-terrorism officials want to know why ISIS dudes are tooling around in Toyota trucks.

Let me save you the trouble, US Officials.

Toyota trucks are good. I own one. A 2015 Tacoma. Love it.

If you are suggesting that Toyota is somehow in league with ISIS, (and it seems like you are) that's just so much bullshit.

Do they sell Toyotas in Syria? How about Iran? Iraq? Saudi Arabia? Turkey?

I'm guessing...yes?

That's where they got them.

Do you think Toyota execs are loving it every time an image of one of their vehicles is featured in the news with a band of ISIS dudes kicking up dust across the desert with a black flag and a 50 caliber machine gun in the bed? Naw...probably not. And I'm sure they frown on the way they overload the bed. You're not even supposed to ride back there!

Now, if Ford wants to jump in here, or Chevy, and make some counter-claim in their advertising, something along the lines of, "Terrorists Rarely Drive Our Trucks," that's probably fair game.

No foul here, America. Just a good truck.

Abandoned Cities

Like a hellscape wasteland in a zombie movie, we ditch the glass-walled canyons for the green hills of the suburbs after dark. Here's DC's population by day and by night.

Joe Lertola has more maps. Chicago and Manhattan look just as bleak when the sun goes down, which I'm sure is how the REAL Manhattanites (those who transplanted themselves there) like it.

Supersaturated Street Views - Music Video Edition

If you search Google Street Views on this blog you'll see how long I've been fascinated (obsessed) with this aspect of Google's Total Domination of the Earth. They own my email, this blog, YouTube and the street I live on.

This video combines my one-guitar, one-voice rendition of the very dark American Blues classic "Dock of the Bay" with images of the San Francisco area as seen on Google Street Views, with the saturation pumped up a bunch to give it a dreamy quality. (Assuming you dream in color.) I found the mundane, the sublime, the silly and the sad just by dropping that little yellow man onto the map and moving him up and down the streets of this great American city, trying to frame each scene just so. I've only been to SF a few times, but I was captivated, just like most people who visit that very unique Golden State town. Now I feel like I've been there again.

If I get 1 million views of this video, I might just ride my bike from Orlando to San Francisco in support of some worthy cause, perhaps homeless veterans. I figure it'll take a little over a month. ('Course I'm gonna need a few sponsors, like a motel chain and a restaurant chain, probably a bike shop as well.) If not, I might attempt to sell this song or video on iTunes and try to get enough money to fix the roof, because it's leaking. If the estate of Otis Redding or the monolithic monster Google come after me, I'll jump from that bridge when I come to it. Short of that, just enjoy. And for best results, please crank it up.

Unemployment Will Make a Man Do Weird Things - Part 2

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm a huge fan of Google Street Views. So I decided to tour the country and see every state capitol building. It was fun. Here is a record of my trip, with an original track by the insanely talented Fred Leo of Atlanta, on which I provided the whistle. I hope this little half-minute lark goes a long way toward healing the deep divisions that threaten to tear our country asunder, but I'm a realist, and some of these state capitols are hideous monstrosities of architectural incompetence, built by stupid people in stupid states where all the opinions are stupid. So there.



More Google Street Views nonsense.

Two Point Owning Some Dead Designs

The State of Florida's flag design was approved by a popular referendum in 1900. I assume that means white men, since only they could vote then*. And these men were not concerned with the aesthetics of design. They were fighting snakes and Seminoles and wondering when someone would hurry up and invent air-conditioning. And they were likely only given one design to review. In 1900, no less.

"You like it or not?" the Florida government asked the white guys, and they were all, "Sure. Whatever. Got to have a flag, right?"

Supersize me

State flags are generally composed of uninspired variations on the state seal, maybe a Latin word or two, the date of statehood. Blah, boilerplate crap. Or they go with some goofy take on the American flag. (Talkin' to you Texas, Ohio, Hawaii, Mississippi.) I think California scores well, even if the image is kind of, oh, communist all around. My other favorites, only because they didn't do what you'd expect, are the flags of Tennessee, Arizona, Alaska, South Carolina and New Mexico. Honorable mentions go to Colorado, Rhode Island, Arkansas and Indiana for the extra effort. For sheer balls and against-the-grain rebelliousness, Alabama gets good marks for their punk rock flag that isn't even properly shaped. Or maybe that's a Confederate X, in which case, nevermind.

I get the feeling that the cool ones were designed by one person and the crappy ones were designed by a few committees reaching a compromise that satisfied no one. Then they ran it by the Governor's wife and her best friend, who used to work for the high school yearbook and knows a thing or two about "the proper placement of elements so as to draw the viewer into an experience with the piece." She said, "Make that green a little greener. And does the guy in the coonskin cap have his fly open?" Once the Governor's wife's best friend was done adjusting the design, they put it to a referendum of the white menfolk. In 1900.

I think State governments should overhaul their images once in a while. They do it with their license plates all the time. Hey, Maryland! What the fuck is going on in that seizure-inducing, nightmare illusion? Oregon. Really? A cartoon beaver? C'mon, Idaho. You're not even trying.

Isn't it time we 2.0'd some of these ugly old relics?




* Yes, I know Blacks were given the vote post-Civil War, but the quickly adopted Poll Tax in the Southern states sort of prevented a lot of Blacks from voting.

Virtual Travel

I love Google Street Views. Sure, it's got shades of Big Brother, but it's not like they have live video feed from the street in front of your house. Yet.

I like to pick random towns and just parachute in to look around, maybe moving forward a few miles by clicking on the furthest shaded circle that appears when you mouse over the road. That new feature allows you to speed down a road faster than before.

Here are the four corners of the continental US, as far as Google has mapped them on Street Views. (Click for larger.)

Northeast: Hamlin, Maine

Southwest: Imperial Beach, California

Northwest: Blaine, Washington

Southeast: Key West, Florida

It's All About New York and LA

Or so they think.

It is printable

A Nation of Immigrants

Hey, Hannity! They barely speak English, but they love their country.

Patriotism is alive in one of the most neglected yet colorful areas of Miami. This in-progress American mural graces a wall in Little Haiti.

mas grande

I'm hoping the artist eventually puts some lapels on that Mister Rogers sweater Obama's wearing, turning it into a proper jacket.

Joe Zark

Alaskans are getting understandably pissed that their state is being mocked nationwide as some sort of meth-lab trailer-trash white racist book-burning haven of religious extremists who squirt out babies every 9 months while hunting wolves from airplanes as they eat moose burgers.

I've been to Alaska twice and I can attest that it is a very nice place, more so in the summer, and that these broad generalizations and urban-snobbish opinions can easily be applied to any state in the Union. I'm sure upstate New York has its share of hill-folk. I once met a man in Leesburg, Virginia, 40 miles from Washington, DC, who talked about how "we" beat back the Yankees at a certain point on the Potomac. I know you don't have to venture too far here in Florida to find less than urbane and civilized characters. And having lived for a few years in the town of Ozark, Missouri, I can solemnly state that few regions of the United States could rival the Ozarks for backwoods closed-mindedness. (And meth labs.) Oh, they love Jesus, doncha know, but they love the white, Matthew McConaughey Jesus who votes Republican.

Joe Zark is my expression of my love/hate of the beautiful/ugly state of Missouri, which is really no different than any other state.


Advertisers: You may rent space on Joe Zark's hat or overalls.

Here's another Joe Zark.

Let Me 'Splain it This Way

Many friends and readers are sending me links to this video of the professional jet fighter pilot who jumped from an airplane over the Swiss Alps and cruised to earth in a nice little 18-minute flight with his jet-powered wing-thing. They title the emails, “HERE’S YOUR JETPACK!”

It’s a nice sight to behold and looks like a thrilling ride, but no, that’s not my jetpack.

The only way I will stop asking the question “Where’s My Jetpack?” is when jetpacks are affordable to common folks like you and me and will safely convey us to and from our places of employment or the grocery store. It would also be nice if they didn’t sound like F-18s at full throttle and could fly for longer than a couple minutes on a tank of fuel. Another real benefit would be if they were available at Wal-Mart. I want them easy enough to operate that my Mom could handle one.

But more than that, “Where’s My Jetpack?” is at its heart a joke, a lament and an encouragement. The jetpack is simply a symbol of all the other things that were supposed to be here by now, promised to us by the advertisers, by Disney, by the government and all the other dreamers. As it says over in the sidebar in the “What’s The Meaning of This?” section: “The future is now, and we’re still waiting.”

And we will wait forever. Maybe the jetpack will be here in a hundred years, but I really ask the question to keep people from getting too pessimistic, believe it or not. It’s not just about a lack of technology or futuristic fun that hasn’t arrived. It’s about that grand Utopian vision that we will never achieve. As the song goes:

Where’s the end of war and freedom from disease?
Where’s the milk and honey from sea to shining sea?
Where are the crime-free cities and rockets on our backs?
Where are the smooth moving sidewalks? Where’s my jetpack?

The biggest lie ever foisted upon our optimistic species is, “You shall be as gods.” Here are some things I know about the future:

• There will always be liars, cheaters and thieves, hiding behind asterisks followed by fine print.
  
• Barack Obama isn’t bringing world peace.
• John McCain is not a maverick. He's a typical phony politician.
• You will always encounter spiteful and hateful bastards and bitches wherever you go.
• People will likely always be starving somewhere in this world.
• Life is only easy once in a great while.

As long as you know that the promises made to us and the dreams held out in front of us by our leaders, the media (and their sponsors) are usually a bunch of crap, you can do what you need to do, rarely being disappointed. You won’t be expecting a handout. You may be offering a hand-up. You might take a moment to appreciate what you have right here, right now.

That’s a roundabout way to arrive at optimism, I know, and I'm still working on it. But I have always learned the hard way.

A hovercraft in every drive
Instant breakfast on the table at 6:45
Rocket to the moon and race right back
to my holograph room and my new jetpack

Remember, I was gonna watch your dreams
On a flush-mounted giant plasma flat-screen
Baby, we were gonna live forever
With a wish and a pill and the pull of a lever

Heaven on Earth in a God Free Zone
Where we all get along and no one’s alone
A paradise of plenty where nobody lacks
We're all flying around with our own jetpacks

Size is ALL That Matters

We Americans see everything in terms of ourselves, no matter where on the planet we may be. If we're going to travel to your country, for instance, we'd like to be sure there will be Coca-Cola, a Starbucks and of course, a McDonald's close at hand. Some American TV channels would be nice, too. And when we go to your country, we don't like to think in terms of kilometers or Celsius. Give us the conversion formulas so we understand the REAL distances and temperatures. (Kilometers x .6 = miles. An easy, if slightly inaccurate Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion is "double it and add 30.") And do us a favor: speak English.

And when we measure your country, we measure it against what we know. Don't talk to us about strength of the dollar vs. your currency. Don't talk to us about culture, history or how many years we might need to subdue your tiny country if we ever have to put you in your place.

The following comparisons come from the extremely comprehensive and very useful CIA World Factbook, a great resource. It gives us some comfort to know that, besides Russia, we've got most of you beat. Don't be insulted by these comparisons. Embrace them. Perhaps we can create a sister-state organization whereby, for example, Vietnam and New Mexico exchange ideas and cultural ambassadors.

• Denmark: slightly less than twice the size of Massachusetts
• Belgium: about the size of Maryland
• Germany: slightly smaller than Montana
• Greece: slightly smaller than Alabama
• UK: slightly smaller than Oregon
• Iraq: slightly more than twice the size of Idaho
• Afghanistan: slightly smaller than Texas
• Costa Rica: slightly smaller than West Virginia
• France: slightly less than the size of Texas
• Iran: slightly larger than Alaska
• Vietnam: slightly larger than New Mexico
• China: slightly smaller than the US
• Russia: approximately 1.8 times the size of the US
• Cuba: slightly smaller than Pennsylvania
• Kenya: slightly more than twice the size of Nevada
• Israel: slightly smaller than New Jersey
• Lebanon: about 0.7 times the size of Connecticut
• Saudi Arabia: slightly more than one-fifth the size of the US
• Switzerland: slightly less than twice the size of New Jersey
• Ghana: slightly smaller than Oregon
• Czech Republic: slightly smaller than South Carolina

This is My Rifle

In today's climate, selling a career in the military to young men and women has to be a tough job. But the USMC has put together a very elaborate (and effective?) campaign featuring the "Silent Drill Platoon."

This is the same commercial production that caused a stir in San Francisco last November when city officials refused the Marines access to the Golden Gate Bridge. It started airing late last month. I couldn't find any agency related to it, but MTLB thinks JWT had a hand in this.

Unlike the usual military recruitment ads, this one has no scenes of combat training, no one in battle dress uniform yelling orders to warriors with painted faces, no screeching planes or helicopters. Starting in Rhode Island, we see scenes of America in a veritable sea to shining sea depiction of amber waves of grain, alabaster cities gleaming and purple mountain majesty, with this silent drill team showcasing their precision skills, culminating in a nice shot of the very bridge they were denied access to.

Here's the "official extended version."



They've also put together a bunch of "on location" videos of the various shoots.

Times Square, Kentucky, Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountains, San Francisco, Rhode Island

And of course, there's a companion website.

Will this increase recruitment? I don't know. But it sure is pretty. And I think even the most dyed-in-the-wool San Francisco pacifist can appreciate good film-making, even if you deem that film propaganda. You might even feel a slight hint of patriotism stirring in your cynical heart.

Previously in Military Recruitment:

(Holland) Wars and Rumors of Wars
(Georgia) Georgia on My Mind
(England) Breadfruit, Rum and Scurvy
(Czech Republic and United States) Czechs Kick Our Cinematic Butts
(Russia) Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
(Australia) Throw Another Shrimp on the Barbed Wire
(Japan) Adventure's Waitin' Just Ahead

And Crown Thy Good With Brotherhood

Here in Central Florida, we get people from everywhere. They come on vacation to see the Mouse, and they say, "Nice weather. We should live here." When they arrive, they never quite let go of the places they came from. New Yorkers will tell you all day long what a shithole Florida is while extolling the virtues of Brooklyn or Queens. Puerto Ricans, Britons and Russians display their national flags on their cars. On my street during college football season, I can find the flags of Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State and Boston College flying on porches. At the local park on any given weekend, I can watch a Dominican soccer team play a bunch of pink-faced Germans in a friendly match of national pride. Even in that loose, pick-up, amateur league, you will find the players shaking hands at game's end.

This is a transient area, a microcosm of the Great Melting Pot, where every color, country and 49 others states are represented in a simmering stew. And just like every other area that boasts a Chinatown or a Little Italy or a Spanish Harlem, we manage to get along. We're Americans first, but we're not about to let go of the places we truly think of as "home."

That said, this is my 619th blog post. 619 is an area code in San Diego. Go Chargers.